Denver Public Schools has quietly put the rest of its controversial variable-rate bonds with swaps on the market to sell as fixed-rate debt.

Five years after issuing a 30-year, $750 million school pension bond that turned into a financial quagmire for the district, DPS is selling $519.8 million in fixed-rate, refunding certificates of participation (COPs), set to price during the week of April 15, according to an announcement Friday from Fitch Ratings.

...

DPS "fixed out"  or issued debt at a fixed interest rate  half of the original $750 million in debt in 2011, and paid nearly $42 million in swap termination fees to New York-based JPMorgan to do so.

After the termination fees were added, the 2011 refinance came to $792 million, with $396 million in fixed-rate debt and $396 million in variable-rate debt.

Based on the fact that the district is issuing nearly $520 million in COPs this month to fix out the remaining $396 million debt, it would indicate that DPS is paying about $124 million in swap termination fees.

The district didn't issue a press release about the bonds.

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The original 30-year, $750 million pension certificates of participation (PCOPs) in 2008  spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who was then DPS superintendent  were issued with a variable interest rate

I was looking to see who sold them this concept - JP Morgan Chase - surprise, surprise. One of the Federal Reserve's main member banks.

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution. I am an Enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but Coin. If the American People allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all their Property until their Children will wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered. Thomas Jefferson

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